by Jack Slater
He hoped that held true for law enforcement.
Trapp parked the car not far from the fence, just across a light railroad line that ran adjacent to the lot. The stacked pallets loomed out of the darkness like some kind of spectral pirate ship.
He sat in the front seat for 15 minutes before climbing out, mainly to gain a few moments’ respite from the night’s tension. He busied himself inside the trunk, removing several items from his backpack and adding several more, including a thick, heavy woven rug and a pair of equally robust workmen’s gloves.
From that position, he had a pretty good vantage point from which to survey the impound lot, which remained resolutely dark and lifeless as long as he waited.
There was nothing to worry about, Trapp decided after eyeballing the place a little longer. He checked his watch and shut the trunk. It was 0200. Time to go.
30
Trapp walked slowly around the impound lot, wishing he owned a dog, or had even thought to purchase a pack of cigarettes to serve as a plausible cover for being out so late. His eyes swept left and right across the street, which was lit by well-spaced streetlights, but mainly the preternatural glow of the light pollution thrown by the city of Los Angeles.
In the distance, at least a mile away, a siren whipped past, and though he strained his ears, it was impossible to make out the direction the clamor was coming from. Once it was gone, he still heard the echo as his mind attempted to fill the empty space.
As best as he could make out, the lot was both empty and unstaffed at this late hour, which jived with the reconnaissance trip he’d made earlier.
Even so, he waited until he had circled the entire block once to be certain that his instincts weren’t selling him a dud and telling him a story he wanted to believe. Only once he was entirely certain did he stop outside the front gate. He leaned up against it and pretended to fiddle with his boots, all the while sweeping his gaze in a full arc as he performed one last check.
Here goes nothing.
Trapp placed his boot back on the ground, turned to face the gate, and kicked it hard – three times. The crashes rang out into the empty night, instinctively causing him to wince. It was hardly the ideal way to start a covert infiltration of enemy territory – but then again, this impound lot wasn’t exactly the Western Front. He held his breath as he waited, as if the sound of air passing through his lips would be what gave him away.
I guess nothing it is.
He waited a full minute just to be sure, long after any prowling guard dogs would have found his position and announced themselves by hurling their snarling bodies at the other side of the gate. He thankfully blinked away the image of saliva drooling from a vicious canine’s maw and made his move.
He swung the backpack off his shoulder, unfastening its clip in the same movement and crouching on his haunches in front of it. He reached inside and retrieved three items: the rug and a glove for either hand, which he donned.
The rug went over the barbed wire a second later, and as soon as a deft thump from the other side of the steel indicated that it was safely cocooning the wicked spikes, Trapp threw himself skyward—only for the still recent scar on his side to seethe with pain. His upward momentum faded almost instantly, leaving his forearms and shoulders to take the brunt of 190 pounds of muscle, fat and bone linking up with the pull of gravity and threatening to yank his arms right out of their sockets.
The joints held.
Just.
“Crap,” he hissed as a wave of agony glanced from his right shoulder, down the arm and into the elbow, and met with a co-equal branch presently soaring up his side. For a second, it was so intense as almost to be blinding. He bit down hard on the side of his cheek to distract himself and waited for it to fade.
As soon as the agony began to dissipate, Trapp started hauling his heavy frame up the gate, inch by excruciating inch. The structure swayed underneath him like a ship bobbing on a heavy swell, and the chime of a metal chain clanking filled the air, thunderous in his ears against the night’s quiet.
Finally, he dragged himself to the top, swaying the gate one last time as he rocked his right leg hard up and over so that he was sitting struggling on top of it. He allowed himself a second to catch his breath, but only one, before inching toward a mound of crushed scrap near the fencing on the other side and slowly lowering himself down the other side, pulling the rug down after him.
He crouched there for ten long seconds as he stowed the items away and then another ten after that, listening to the rumble of the city go by, wondering if anyone had heard his exertion.
When he finally decided they had not, Trapp grabbed the rucksack and slung it back over his shoulder, not bothering to loop his left arm through the other strap. He jogged slowly through the lot’s access road, up through the endless rows of parked vehicles that jutted into the night like jagged saw teeth against the faint glow of the Los Angeles nightscape.
The air smelled heavy and polluted as Trapp pushed his way through it, the acrid stink of sweat adding to the mix, yet contributing little. He kept his large frame low, sheltering behind the vehicles, conscious that little separated him from the other side of the transparent fence other than the scant cover of darkness.
He was careful, too, to avoid brushing any of the cars with even the slightest amount of force, wary of triggering an alarm that would announce his presence to the entire world. He worked his way through the lot, low and slow, for about five minutes, until he was surrounded by cars a dozen rows in any direction, and equally shielded from prying eyes.
Particularly those belonging to law enforcement.
Only then did he get to work.
Trapp removed a multitool from a pocket in his dark fatigues and moved systematically down the line of vehicles, taking each one in turn. He had practiced on his own, and it had only taken him two or three tries to familiarize himself with the technique sufficiently that he could strip a car of its license plates, front and back, in under 30 seconds.
He was three down, and a front bumper into the fourth, when he hit trouble. He crawled to the rear of a ‘98 Corolla, only to discover that the plate was already, inexplicably, missing. He cursed, a little too loudly, and clenched his jaw shut when he realized that the sound had carried across the yard.
Trapp dropped to the ground. And that’s when he heard it.
Although it would be more accurate to say he heard them. Kids.
Teenagers.
The worst kind.
There was a gaggle of half a dozen of them, he guessed, though with his belly flat against the ground, he made the estimation by sound alone. The high-pitched yells and slurred intonation made it clear that they’d been drinking.
As did the smashing tinkle of glass on asphalt, as one of them sent a bottle crashing against the ground.
One of the kids cursed. “Jackass! That one wasn’t empty.”
“Was. Near enough anyway. Anyway, I stole it. So what’s it to you?”
Trapp relaxed as the teens began arguing among themselves, hoping they would keep on walking. He rolled gently onto his back and quietly started packing the stolen license plates into his rucksack, placing them at the bottom of the bag and resting the gear for the wires on top.
Unfortunately, at that moment the two voices turned inward, the sound carrying with more clarity in his direction.
Directly in his direction. “Hey! Someone in there?”
“What the hell you talking about, Sammy?” the first kid asked, his natural volume increased through the liberal consumption of alcohol. “You’re seeing shadows.”
“I saw something, I swear it. In there.”
“In the lot?” the first one asked skeptically. “It’s closed at night, bro. I told you, no one comes out here. We’re fine.”
“You’re sure?”
“Chill out, Sammy,” a girl laughed. “Here, I’ll show you.”
At first it sounded like a wind chime tinkling on the breeze. Then it built, a crescendo of c
hain dragging against asphalt. And it kept building, louder and louder as first the girl, then others began shaking the fence, laughing raucously as they indulged their drunken fun, swinging it to and fro until the sound captured Trapp’s entire attention.
Apparently it had the same effect on them, for neither he nor they immediately noticed the patrol car silently rolling up the access road to the side of the impound lot, its lights off, until it was too late.
The officer opened his door and bellowed, “The hell are you kids doing?”
Trapp's forehead dropped to the ground, and he pressed it there hard for a second, berating himself for his carelessness. In truth, he could not have planned for this scenario. It was a black swan, or a rogue wave, impossible to predict.
But that didn’t make it any less real. And the wave was speeding toward his bow, and he didn’t know if there was anything he could do to stop it.
He forced himself to concentrate and asked himself three simple questions, though the answers were anything but.
What do you know? What don’t you know? How are you getting out of here?
There was only one way out, and it was the exact same way he’d found his way in: over the gate. Trapp also knew that the longer he waited, the greater the chance was that he would be caught. Even now, the officer was probably calling in backup, if only so calling in a few drunk kids flattered his arrest numbers for the week.
But the last thing he needed was to get arrested. For all he knew, Sheriff Grayson had a warrant out for his arrest. And even if no one was looking for him, being caught in a city impound lot would be worth a couple of years, at least.
Trapp crawled silently onto his hands and knees, and tilted his head to get a look at what was happening on the other side of the fence. The kids were now illuminated by the officer’s flashlight, still frozen in place with their fingers clenched around the chain-link fence.
The cop had pulled up his car close to them, which meant it was on the far side of the impound lot from its entrance. There was no simple route from where he was to Trapp’s way out.
And he knew one last thing: if only he made it to his car, he’d be lost in traffic in two minutes, and on the I-5 in 10.
Now or never, kid.
Trapp reached back into the rucksack and started crawling down the row of cars toward the steel gate, pulling the can of spray paint out as he did so. His heart was beating near as fast as it could, as though he’d reached the end of the hundred meter race, though he was barely moving. He passed by 10 cars, maybe 15, and then switched a row and passed 10 more.
“I swear, we saw someone in there,” one of the kids wailed. Trapp recognized the voice. It was Sammy.
Sniveling little shit.
“You been drinking?”
Stupid question.
Trapp rose off his hands and knees into a crouch, though he was still careful to remain low and out of the cop’s line of sight. Now that he was on his feet again, the cars passed faster.
“Just a little. We found it,” Sammy lied.
Trapp knew that for sure. He’d told the same story a hundred times. Never spared him the consequences, though.
“Sure you did, kid,” the cop said, though he had to strain to hear him at this distance.
“I’m telling you the truth,” Sammy yelled wildly, reaching for anything that might save him from whatever hell his parents were about to rain down on his head as soon as the cop let them know what their son was getting up to.
Trapp paused in front of a Chevrolet SUV and pulled out the can of spray paint, knowing he needed to give the police some vandalism to investigate that wasn’t the theft of half a dozen license plates. The cop’s voice was almost indistinct at this distance, and he figured the sound of an aerosol can wouldn’t carry too far.
He pulled off the plastic lid, and his index finger paused on the spray. He never was much of an artist back in school. Had some talents, to be sure, but they were mostly of the sporting variety. Running was a good way to get out of the house. To hide from whatever madness his parents were indulging in that day.
But art? Not really his thing.
And yet in that moment, a flash of inspiration struck him. He raised his hand in the air, can clutched in it, and sprayed a squiggle of paint onto the Chevrolet’s windshield. A squiggle in the shape of a snake.
And then he did another right down the side.
S.
Another on the car beside it.
S.
A wicked grin stretched across Trapp’s face.
Another S.
S for Sammy.
“Can’t you hear that?” the kid yelled.
Trapp thrust the can of paint back into his rucksack. It was time to go. The adrenaline felt tart and metallic on the back of his tongue, and somehow his heart was beating even faster than it had before. He started to sprint, pushing the can to the bottom of the bag and pulling the rug out as he moved, his lungs now straining for oxygen.
The gate loomed out of the darkness ahead of him as the red and blue of a police light flashed somewhere behind him. The cop would never make it. Trapp threw the rug back onto the top of the gate and then himself. This time, there was no pain.
Screw you, Sammy.
31
“You know what you’re doing?” Chino grunted doubtfully, leaning against the wall of his house as he watched Trapp work.
He stopped what he was doing, dusted off his hands on his knees, and pushed himself off the ground. Turning to face the Latino vet, he shrugged and said, “My platoon pulled three months running perimeter for the EOD boys, whenever they had to go someplace hairy. Real crazy bastards, believe me. I picked up a few tips.”
“Jason, you’re wiring the back of my house with explosives. I was kinda hoping you knew a little more than a few tips.”
Trapp stretched out his hand, and taking the hint, Chino tossed him a cold soda from an ice bucket on the doorstep. He would’ve preferred a chilled beer, but he needed a clear head for what was to come. “No wires.” He grinned.
“Come again?”
He gestured at the section of pipe he was concealing at the bottom of the fence at the back of Chino’s yard. Once he scattered a few handfuls of dirt over the front, the bomb would be almost impossible to detect visually. The fence was about head height, and the only unoccupied vantage point high enough to provide overwatch was the shell of the apartment building over the street.
Which Trapp himself would be occupying.
“It’s called Tannerite,” he explained, crouching down and grabbing a handful of the explosive. He rubbed it through his fingers, showing Chino what looked like tiny black and white plastic ball bearings. “You can rig it up with a blasting cap, fire the damn thing off and… Nothing. Shit’s inert.”
Chino’s left eyebrow – what was left of it, anyway – hiked upward. Whether it was in surprise or with distrust, Trapp wasn’t entirely sure. “So what the hell good is it?”
“Target shooters use it,” Trapp explained. “You stick a quarter pound of the stuff in an empty beer bottle, the second a bullet hits it, the bottle shatters. Bit of a bang, nice puff of smoke. Looks real cool, you know? And you can get it in most gun shops.”
“So you’re… What? Setting up a distraction?”
Trapp shook his head, a broad grin stretching across his tanned face. It struck him just then with more than a flash of regret that he hadn’t thought of Shea in days now. He been so lost in planning his, what…
Revenge fantasy?
“Hey, buddy,” Chino said, clicking his fingers in midair. “You in there?”
“Sorry. Where was I?”
Chino pointed. “Distraction: yay or nay?”
Trapp grabbed the sack of Tannerite. It weighed a full twenty pounds. “Like I said, you use a few ounces of the stuff, you get a satisfying bang, but nothing much else. But let’s just say you used five pounds. Ten, even. Hell, you might blow somebody’s leg off…”
He set the sack back down
on the ground and picked up a smaller plastic container, which rattled as he spun it between his hands. “Pack the front end with a couple handfuls of ball bearings, and you’ve built yourself a claymore, near enough. Won’t win any awards, but it’ll put a man down on the ground. For good.”
“What about my house?” Chino inquired, looking a little sickly. Or maybe just tired. Trapp had noticed that the guy’s stamina was more like that of a man in his 70s than a kid the same age as he was.
Trapp glanced up at the only other occupied house on Chino’s row. The next two over were abandoned, and the one after that was being refurbished. “Your neighbor – she got family?”
“Mrs. Carter?” Chino squinted at the change of pace. “Yeah, she got a son. Makes him check in on me sometimes. Buy groceries, that kind of thing. Real nice guy.”
Trapp dropped the books of ball bearings and stared the Latino directly in the eye. “I’m going to be straight with you. The second we place that call, your life is as good as over. At least until we bring Odysseus down. You understand that, right?”
“Jason –”
He didn’t let him get a word in. “Because if we’re right about them, they won’t stop coming. I’m gonna blow a hole in the side of your house, and that’ll just be the start of it.”
“Jason!” Chino repeated, his voice hard as granite. “I know what’s at stake. I accept the consequences. They killed my friends. Shot them to death right in front of me. I listened to them bleed out. And you know something?”
“What?”
“I’m a real Old Testament kinda guy,” Chino said grimly. “If they were the ones who did it, they made their bed. Ain’t no clean hands down a coalmine.”
Trapp stayed silent for a few seconds. He had his own demons – what he’d allowed those Odysseus thugs to get away with in Iraq, and then what they’d done to Shea. But somehow he understood that what he’d been through didn’t hold a candle to the hell that Chino lived every single hour.